The Management of migration processes has become a priority for Europe because it involves ambiguous aspects for all countries that are tangent to this process, both donors and recipients of migrants. Emigration was particularly acute in the last decade for Moldova, threatening the prospects for its economic and social development. Although, it has some positive aspects, such as remittances sent in the country that allow supporting the consumption, the emigration has also multiple negative consequences, however, such as causing extremely serious social and economic problems - the shortage of labour force, production not produced, separate families, children without guardianship, school dropout, etc. Such problems are very stringent for the country and for the future they can cause lasting genuine social crisis, like depopulation, with all related consequences. In our work we intend to analyze the intensity and consequences of migration, and in particular to reflect the capability of the associative economy in solving them. The authors hypothesize that an element of the associative sector such as cooperative activity with a long history in Moldova can substantially contribute to the sustainable development of the country and population retention in the rural habitat, where are located the most of cooperatives. Although in the last two decades the economy has met major changes, including the transition from the socialist model of development to the market economy, cooperatives remain viable in Moldova and an essential reality is that the social component is a fundamental pillar of their activity. In our opinion, the economic development strategy of the country should further support the cooperative model of activity in order to ensure a strong and balanced economic system, especially in rural areas. The research methodology included methods such as analysis and synthesis, comparative method and statistical method. Likewise, an important contribution was the promotion of a sociological research in order to study the perception of cooperatives by the society, particularly by the young generation and their impact on society. The research results has led to the elucidation of important aspects of migration, and the opportunities that the cooperative sector provides in order to relax the intensity of emigration as well as the opportunities for sustainable development, particularly in rural areas where the majority of the population lives and where the most important stream of emigration propagates.